on prayer | 7

 -

"And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

(Luke 18:1-8)

. . . they ought always to pray and not lose heart.
-

on prayer | 6

 -

"What my mother had just taught me, of course, was the first two basic principles of prayer: It requires a disciplined routine and it is an art best practiced by a composed mind and spirit: for that, I came to understand, was what the magazine and manicure kit and Bible were all about . . . she was an accomplished traveler in those lands [of prayer]. [However,] her greatest gift to me was not some principle or other characterizing prayer, but the implicit suggestion that those lands were there to be entered into . . .  "

(Phyllis Tickle, The Shaping of a Life: A Spiritual Landscape)

Those lands are there to be entered into . . . always and everywhere. This I need to remember.
-